


Things We Tell Ourselves

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M, role-reversal au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 17:55:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12325944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: "I have a crush on Jason. That's it, that's the big secret."





	Things We Tell Ourselves

**Author's Note:**

> It's the Crush on Jason AU, guys!  
> This is mostly a rework of some old shorts I did right after House of Hades came out, pulling them together into one cohesive story, rewriting, and adding some new sections.  
> (Side note: I haven't written for PJO/HOO in a long time, but Riordan's books are very dear to my heart and it really made me happy to come back to. Especially this concept specifically, because I love it. I have an MCGA fic in progress, too, so keep an eye out!)

_“That’s it, that’s the big secret.”_

Nico’s own words echoed through his head. Gods, did that really happen? Had he really bared his soul in front of _Percy fucking Jackson_ of all people? Sure, it wasn’t by choice, it was the only way, but _gods_. This was an absolute disaster, wasn’t it?

How did this even _happen_?

\--

The first time Nico _really_ met Jason was the day after he first met Hazel.

His father had informed him of the existence of the Roman camp a while ago, but Nico had never had a reason to spend much time there. He’d only had a vague sense of its location, but after meeting Hazel and realising it was where she belonged, he made an effort to find it. After that, he visited fairly frequently.

His first impression of Jason was a favourable one, as he was kind to Hazel and seemed more or less unafraid and unperturbed on having their parentage explained to him. He seemed like a good leader – largely unflappable, seemed to genuinely care about making people feel like they belonged – if maybe a little stiff.

After Nico introduced Hazel to the praetors and explained (as much as he could) the situation, he walked away. Jason followed him.

“Nico! Hey, Nico!” he called.

Nico turned around. “Do you need something, Grace?”

“Call me Jason,” said Jason, smiling easily. “And no, not exactly. I was just wondering - we talked about your sister’s future with the legion, but yours never came up. You don’t want to stay?”

“Ah, no,” Nico replied, caught off guard. No one else in his life had ever really given much thought to where he wanted to be. “I have other obligations. Jobs to do in the Underworld and such.”

“Oh. Well you should at least hang around for a while. I’m sure it’ll help Hazel settle in,” Jason said. He put his hand on Nico’s shoulder, looking a little concerned. “Plus I bet you don’t get a lot of interaction with living humans in the Underworld.”

“I, uh, yeah, I’ll stay a few days,” said Nico. 

(It wasn’t actually their very first meeting, but in the past they’d only encountered each other in passing out in the world, and there had only been vague acknowledgement of each other’s abilities before going their separate ways. They hadn’t talked. But that day, the day that Nico brought Hazel to New Rome, when Jason looked at Nico with that hopeful smile and the little crinkle between his eyebrows from concern – that was the day Nico would realise later had absolutely _ruined_ his life.)

And then Jason disappeared.

Nico ignored the mild but growing panic he felt as he talked to Reyna about where Jason might be. Jason was a (sort of) grown up, well-trained half-blood. Surely he could handle… whatever had happened. And anyway, it wasn’t like they were friends. What did Nico care, really, if Jason never came back? (Quite a bit more than he cared admit, unfortunately.)

Only then Percy Jackson disappeared, too, and maybe Nico admitted - to himself and  _no one else_  that he was maybe a little worried. Not about Percy, mind, so much as about how much trouble was probably brewing when the two most powerful demigods in the world got abducted at the same time. Obviously.

\--

With Jason and Percy both missing, Nico found himself a little desperate. He didn’t want to own that, really, because who cares what happens to Percy Jackson, right? (If no one else, Annabeth, Nico thought despite himself, and whatever else went on, however wronged Nico felt by Percy, he cared about Annabeth.) Really, though, it was hard not to feel like Jason and Percy disappearing was probably the beginning of the end of the world – it might well _be_ the beginning of the end of the world.

He felt like he was drowning already – why couldn’t one goddamn apocalypse be enough?

And with all of that pressing in on him, Nico did something he hadn’t even thought about in a very, very long time. He went to church.

Now, Nico had been raised Catholic, despite his parentage. Maybe because of his parentage. All Nico knew was that as a very small child he’d asked Mama why they had to go – mass is boring when you’re four – and Mama had ruffled his hair and told him to pay attention. As a child, he hadn’t been particularly attached to any of it.

But as a let’s-just-say-fourteen-year-old, alone and halfway across the world from where he grew up, with Mama and Bianca long gone, it was kind of comforting. He wasn’t sure if he actually _believed_ any of it, but there was something to be said for the familiarity and community that came with going.

(He may have had to find a church that still ran a mass in Latin once a week to make it work, though – there were a lot of things Nico had learned in 80+ years living in the states, but Catholic prayers in English were none of them.)

\--

Jason did, eventually, show up. At Camp Half-Blood. With no memory, and a brand new girlfriend.

Nico had been avoiding Camp since, because he didn’t want to cause any awkward questioning. And maybe also a little teeny tiny bit because of the girlfriend thing, because it was super weird and all kind of rubbed Nico the wrong way.

He figured, though, that since Jason had turned up at Camp Half-Blood, Percy would probably find his way to Camp Jupiter, so he took it as an opportunity to get close to Hazel. He didn’t tell Hazel why he was hanging around so much, just tried to get to know her better and help a bit.

And hey, anything was better than dealing with all this godly nonsense.

 _Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad idea_. That, combined with arrogance and a serious aversion to interacting with nearly anybody who inspired actual feelings in him - specifically things like… okay, the point was he didn’t want to talk to Jason, certainly contributed to how Nico ended up trapped and suffocating for a week.

He dreamed of Percy and Jason and Hazel and sometimes Reyna when he was trapped, up until he was too much dead to dream any longer.

And then what was the first sight that met his tired, burned-out eyes on his escape? Jason’s impossibly, distressingly pretty new girlfriend, then Jason himself, then Percy.

 _Just great_.

Like, literally, was there a worse welcoming party on the goddamned _planet_?

Before Nico had time to recover at all, they’d gone crashing through Rome to pick up Annabeth and lost Jason and Piper.

“Nico!” Jason shouted just before he went tumbling into Tartarus with Piper. “Nico, you have to take them to the Doors, you’re the only one who can!”

“What about you?” Nico called back, leaning as far over the edge of the chasm as he could without falling in again himself. 

“We’ll be fine!”

“You can fly, bird brain! Can’t you just -”

“I can’t!” Jason said, sounding almost… afraid. “It’s pulling us down, there’s too much resistance. Just go, Nico! We’ll meet you there!”

“But -”

“Promise me you’ll do it!”

“I - I will.”

And then Jason and Piper were tumbling down, down, down, until Nico couldn’t see them anymore.

He slept as little as possible on the trip to Epirus. Hazel had noticed, and was growing concerned, but Nico wouldn’t give in to exhaustion (and refused point blank to use Jason’s room in his absence). Every time the lack of sleep did get to him, he was haunted by dreams either of his own time in Tartarus, or glimpses of Jason and Piper’s struggle to get to the Doors.

Better just not to sleep.

And then was the whole Eros fiasco. It was Nico’s idea, partly because the scepter seemed like exactly what they needed, partly because he had a vague memory of one of the Praetors mentioning it and it seemed like as good a place as any to leave a note for Reyna. Nico should’ve known it would be a disaster from the moment that Percy insisted on coming along.

He’d known that they’d have to deal with some unnecessarily complicated trial – nothing in this life ever came without a god trying to screw you over.

But it had been so, so much worse than he’d ever imagined it could be.

Firstly, there was the Percy being present thing. Self-absorbed, completely socially clueless Percy _fucking_ Jackson had to be the one to witness one of the worst moments in Nico’s entire life.

 _Poor Nico di Angelo,_ Eros had said, sounding almost disappointed,  _Do you know what_ you _want, much less what I want? My beloved Psyche risked everything in the name of Love. It was the only way to atone for her lack of faith. And you - what have you risked in my name?_

 _“_ I’ve been to Tartarus and back,” Nico replied. “You don’t scare me.”

_I scare you very, very much. Face me, be honest._

“Nico, what does this guy  _want_  from you?”

 _Tell him, child,_  Eros taunted _. Tell him you are a coward. Tell him you’re afraid of yourself and your feelings. Tell him why you ran from Camp. Why your allegiances changed. Tell him where you’ve been all this time._

Nico screamed, and the ground around him opened, and skeletons crawled out. 

_Will you hide among the dead, as you always do?_

For a long moment, it seemed like nothing happened. Nico had fallen to his knees, but the skeletons seemed to have found and started attacking the god. Percy seemed out of it, trapped in his own head.

And then when he came back to what was going on, he seemed to be looking at Nico with a whole new set of eyes.

The skeletons had Eros - still invisible - pinned.

 _Interesting._ Eros said.  _Do you have the strength after all_?

"I left Camp Half-Blood because of - ” Nico started, making eye contact with Percy and then immediately looking away. “But I gave up on that… ages ago. In New Rome, I have - friends. Reyna -”

 _Still hiding,_ said Eros _. Not strong enough._

“It’s okay, Nico,” Percy said, finally finding his voice, “It’s okay, I get it.”

Nico looked at him again, looking miserable.

“No, you don’t,” he said. “You  _can’t_.”

 _Oh, yes. Run away again_ , Eros said.  _I’m sure none of your friends will be surprised to see you run from them again. From yourself._

"No one will care!” yelled Nico. “I don’t belong anywhere. I’ll never belong!”

“Just leave him  _alone_ , Eros,” Percy said in a hoarse voice.

For another long moment, no one said anything.

"I  _hated_  myself,” Nico said, sounding broken. He made eye contact with Percy. “I hated  _you_. But I grew out of you. Met someone - better.”

And then Eros appeared. He studied Nico.

“ _Jason.”_

Nico stared, unseeing, past Percy. He could almost picture Jason standing there, horrified.

"I have a crush on Jason,” Nico admitted. “That’s it. That’s the big secret.” He glared at Eros. “Happy now?”

When it was all over, Percy just wouldn’t leave him alone.

“Nico, nobody’s gonna care. And if anybody  _does_ have a problem with it -”

“No one’s going to  _know_. Do you understand? You aren’t going to tell anyone. That’s not how this is going to go. Because you know what?” Nico snapped, “ _I_ care. Hazel will care. Gods know  _Jason_ will care.”

“Hazel’s your sister,” Percy said, frowning. “She loves you. Why -”

“Gods, you’re dense,” said Nico. “Hazel and I grew up in the  _thirties_ , idiot. It wasn’t like now. Being - being… like me, it just wasn’t allowed. You could get arrested -  _killed!_ ”

“I didn’t realise that you even  _knew_  Jason.”

"Percy, leave me alone,” Nico said. “And do me a favour and  _never mention it again_. Not even to Annabeth.”

"I’m just a little confused here,” Percy continued, very much not not mentioning it.

“ _Look_ ,” said Nico coldly, “I know that you’ve got your infantile object permanence issues, but I  _do_  exist when not in your line of sight. I’ve spent a lot more time at Camp Jupiter than at Camp Half-Blood in the past few years, and do you want to know why? Because there are people there - Jason especially - who have been kind to me with no obligation to do so.” He glared at Percy to drive home the unspoken  _Unlike you._

“Oh,” said Percy.

“Yeah,  _oh_ ,” Nico replied. “Do me a favour, Percy, and  _drop it_. And for the love of Hades, don’t act weird around Jason when we get him back. If you ruin that friendship for me, I’ll never forgive you.”

Percy keeping his mouth shut, though, really didn’t seem possible. Oh, he didn’t actually tell anyone what happened, but he got really defensive of Nico - which was suspicious, especially to Annabeth, since in the past he had a tendency to forget that Nico existed.

Nico pulled himself together enough to talk to Jason after everything.

“You kept your promise,” Jason said.

“Of course,” said Nico.

“Thanks.” For a moment, neither of them said anything, and then Jason said, “Look, I know what happened in Croatia.”

Nico’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped. It took a few seconds for him to process exactly what had been said and how to respond. “I’m going to  _murder_ Percy Jackson.”

“No! No, Percy didn’t say anything,” Jason said quickly. “I had a dream about it when we were in Tartarus.”

“Oh.”

Jason reached out like he was going to put his hand on Nico’s shoulder, but stopped himself. “Nico, I-”

“It would probably be best for everyone if you just… forgot what you saw,” Nico interrupted. “Please.”

“But Nico -”

“I have to go,” Nico said, backing away. “Reyna!" 

"Nico, wait!” called Jason.

“Good-bye!”

And then Nico was gone.

\--

It felt like a long, long time later that the fighting ended. Nico was pretty sure that Will Solace had been flirting with him, but he wasn’t really interested in reciprocating. Still, Will was nice and funny, and if nothing else it would probably do Nico some good to have some friends who were – well, a little more comfortable with themselves. People who cared about him.

He swept his hands through his hair, trying to come up with a way to let Will down easy that still left room for them to be friends, but also didn’t sound like he was reading too much into it if Will _hadn’t_ been flirting.

He was pacing behind the Hades cabin, pondering all of this, when Jason caught up with him.

“Hey, Nico,” he said tentatively.

Nico froze. “Uh, hi, Jason.”

“How are you doing?” Jason asked. He’d stopped by the back of the cabin, a good 10 feet away from Nico. Nico wasn’t sure if he was trying to give Nico his space or afraid to come any closer.

Nico shrugged. “I’ve been worse. Hazel and Reyna have been all over me to get healthy again, which I guess isn’t so bad.”

“Yeah, you gave us all a bit of a scare,” Jason replied, smiling. “You should’ve seen yourself, you looked –“ he shuddered. “It was bad. You look a lot better now, though.”

“Thanks,” said Nico, tipping his head to one side as he tried to make sense of the faint blush starting to spread across Jason’s cheeks. “How’s Piper?”

“Oh, uh, she’s alright,” Jason said, and he was definitely blushing now. “We broke up.”

“You did?”

“Well, yeah.” Jason took a few steps closer, as if he didn’t want to have this conversation so impersonally. He still stopped short of Nico by a few feet, but when he spoke again his voice was softer. “We were barely even dating, really. It was all – it was all Juno’s meddling. I still don’t have all my memories back, and we’re both feeling a little used by the gods, you know?”

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” replied Nico. “You didn’t come here to talk about Piper.”

“No,” Jason admitted.

“Look, Jason, I don’t really want to talk about Croatia,” said Nico.

“I know, I know,” said Jason, holding up his hands. “That’s okay. I just wanted to tell you that I don’t want you to disappear just because I know.”

“What do you mean?” Nico asked hesitantly.

“Well, I like to think we’re friends?” Jason said. He took a small step forward; letting his hands drop to his sides again. “I remember you, from before. We didn’t know each other well, but – but I _wanted_ to know you. I still do.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t want to push you or anything, you’re clearly uncomfortable,” continued Jason. He shoved his hands into his pockets like he was trying to look casual. “And anyway, I’m still a little scrambled. But –“ he faltered. If Nico had to guess, he hadn’t planned on getting this far in the conversation. “But I’m around. We can try to work it out together, if you want.”

Nico’s voice failed him. He just gave a shaky little nod.

Jason smiled. “I’ll see you around, Nico. I’m glad you’re alright.”

He turned and started to walk away.

“Jason!” Nico called after him, finally finding his voice. Jason paused, looking over his shoulder at Nico. Nico could feel his cheeks going bright red. “I’ll, uh, see you around.”

Jason grinned.


End file.
